


My Problem To Bear

by QuickSilverFox3



Series: Whumptober 2020 [15]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Drabble Sequence, Established Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Possession, Priest Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27229264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickSilverFox3/pseuds/QuickSilverFox3
Summary: “What have we got?”The woman in front of them looked terrible, eyes red rimmed and sunken, but her jaw was clenched.“Sounds like a possession, boss.” Booker settled his camera further up on his shoulder, face illuminated by the glow.[No 15. INTO THE UNKNOWN Possession]
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Whumptober 2020 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947016
Comments: 14
Kudos: 62
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	My Problem To Bear

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly different layout this time, so please let me know what you think <3

“What have we got?”

The woman in front of them looked terrible, eyes red rimmed and sunken, but her jaw was clenched. 

“Sounds like a possession, boss.” Booker settled his camera further up on his shoulder, face illuminated by the glow. 

Andy masked her slight pause, but the gap in her steps echoed like a bell in the otherwise silent room.

“Why us?”

The woman sniffed, shifted in her chair and carefully pulled a crumpled note from her pocket. 

“Because she wrote this. My mother wrote your name in her own blood after trying to claw her own eyes out.”

* * *

Nile fidgeted with the keys, intertwining them through her fingers, as they walked up the small alleyway with the edges littered with rubbish.

“I don’t know when it— everything started,” Nile said as she fumbled with the lock. “I was deployed, but I knew something wasn’t right when I got back.”

The house smelt like a sickroom, a sort of hush that permeated everything tinged with the ever present scent of bleach.

Andy didn’t need to talk to Booker, the man moving to the table and drawing out his kit in almost the same motion, fingers flying over the keyboard.

* * *

Grinning faces stared down from photographs at Andy as she moved down the corridor, Nile shadowing her like a ghost herself. 

“How do you think your mother knew my name?”

Nile flinched, a flicker of movement out of the corner of Andy’s eye. “I couldn’t say, I mean Andromache of Scythia is one hell of a title.”

“Booker’s a whizz at marketing.” Andy paused, turning to face Nile fully. “Everything will be okay. We are _very_ good at our jobs.”

“I hope you are, cause I don’t have anywhere else to turn to.”

Andy squeezed her shoulder tight in comfort.

* * *

Mrs Freeman looked like a corpse in a memorial photograph, propped up on a throne of pillows. Her hands were taped into heavy leather gloves, and Andy’s gaze traveled from them to the deep gouges around her eyes. 

“Mrs Freeman?” Andy called, the camera on her chest whirring, a comforting reminder of Booker just a few rooms away. 

The smile on the woman’s face didn’t fit, too wide, edges curled just so; but Andy would have recognised that smile anywhere. 

“Quynh.”

She hadn’t realised she had spoken until she heard Booker’s footsteps outside, frantic and heavy. 

“Hello Andy. Miss me?”

* * *

“Who’s Quynh?”

“Booker, call Joe and Nicky.”

“They’re on their honeymoon, so it might take me awhile.”

“It’s their fourth honeymoon, they’ll get over it.”

“Listen to me!” Colour was high on Nile’s cheeks, her hands curled into fists at her side. Andy looked at her, and was reminded that was a soldier, unbowed, unbeant, unbroken. “Who is Quynh?”

“Quynh is gone, but not completely.”

“She used to work with us,” Booker clarified when Nile’s glare landed on him, “But there was an accident.”

“And now she’s trying to get your attention through my mother?”

“Yes. I’m sorry for this.”

* * *

Nicky ignored the incessant phone, burrowing further into Joe’s embrace, blinding mouthing at the curve of his collarbone.

“Mio diletto,” Joe groaned, “The phone.”

“What phone?” Nicky asked with a grin like sin. Joe dragged Nicky’s face back up to his, kissing him as if he was drowning. 

“Hello, Booker,” Joe said, answering the phone the moment they parted. 

Nicky would have continued in a similar refrain as the rest of the morning, but Joe tensed beneath his hands, a hard look entering his eye.

“We’ll be there tomorrow.”

“What’s happened?” 

Joe sighed, pressing his hand to his eyes. “Quynh.”

* * *

  
  


“You’re a priest?”

Nicky nodded, flicking through the weatherworn pages of his small bible. Nile tilted her head further, unable to keep her gaze from lingering on the purpling bruises on his neck, highlighted by his white collar. 

“Is my mother going to be okay?”

The tension in the room ebbed, the other man at her table relaxing minutely as he continued to carefully weigh out strange powders. 

“My Nicky is good at what he does,” Joe told her, love and pride laced through every syllable. 

“But you are better, caro,” Nicky countered with a laugh, kissing Joe’s knuckles gently.

* * *

“I can’t do this anymore, Andy.” Booker tipped his whiskey into his cold coffee, cradling it like salvation. “I’m going to break and soon.”

“I need you for this, Book.” Andy squeezed his shoulder tight, gaze never wandering from the closed bedroom door. 

“You needed Quynh as well, and look what happened to her.” It was cruel, satisfaction slipping away as he saw the pain on Andy’s face. “I’m a shit washed-up drunk of a medium.”

“I’ll deal with Quynh after this. It’s my fault.” She sighed, chewing on the edge of her nail. “You shouldn’t suffer for my problems.”

* * *

“Booker!”

Nile spun on her heel from wearing a track into the floor at Andy’s shout, Booker’s face paling instantly. 

“Booker, get in here!”

Nile knew what it looked like when someone walked to their death, but Booker moved down the hall, hands trembling. He paused in front of her mother’s door—Nicky’s voice rising and falling like a prayer within—and pulled a delicate ring on a chain from beneath his shirt, staring at it for a long moment.

“Everything is going to be fine. I’ll get your mother back.” Booker smiled, slipping into the room. The door closed behind him.

* * *

  
  


“Contact us if anything else happens,” Nile curled further around her mother, pressing a kiss to her unfurrowed brow, “but she’s going to be okay.” Andy stood, knees cracking with the movement. 

“Thank you,” Nile whispered, waving as the others left behind Andy, Booker grinning widely at her.

The van was cold, the air stale. Andy drummed her fingers against the steering wheel.

Joe climbed in the backseat, Booker helped in by Nicky, who climbed in after.

“Let Booker go, Quynh. He hasn’t done anything to you.”

Booker’s smile was too wide, edges curled just so. “No. He’s mine now.”


End file.
